Start here · three questions, about a minute
Where do you start?
Someone with a quarter acre out the back and someone with four pots on a third floor balcony are solving different problems. So is someone planting for the first time and someone trying to feed a family of five. Tell us your postcode, where you grow and what you need most, and the answer turns up right here on this page.
No account needed. Your answers stay in this browser, and Start again clears them.
Three questions, then your answer.
There is no wrong answer and nothing is locked in. Change any answer and the page changes with it, or press Start again to clear the lot.
1 Your postcode
So everything below is for your climate zone and this month, not somebody else’s.
2 Where do you grow?
3 What do you need most right now?
Here is where to start
A patch of ground
Space is rarely what holds a ground patch back. Timing is. A good seed sown in the wrong month still fails.
Going in now
A balcony or pots
On a balcony you ration three things a ground gardener never thinks about: light, floor space and weight. Which way it faces decides most of it.
Going in now that suit a pot, least sun first
With other people
When a few people grow together, the trick is not growing more. It is not all picking lettuce in the same week.
Going in now, worth splitting between you
Your first season
You need one good start, not a library. Pick a few easy crops, plant them at the right time, and watch something come up.
Short on time
The patch has to fit around the week, not the other way round. These keep it to a few minutes.
Better than last year
You already grow. What helps now is remembering what worked, where, and when.
Feeding the household
Feeding a household is a planning job: the right amount, sown in batches, with somewhere for the gluts to go.
Not sure, or a bit of both?
Plenty of people are. Pick whichever you spend the most time on and change it later, nothing is locked in.
A patch and a balcony
Start with the one you actually walk out to most days. You can set the other one up afterwards.
Community garden, plus home
Pick “I grow with other people”. You still get your own space, and the swapping side sits on top of it.
Not started yet
Have a look at the demo garden first. It is a real garden with real numbers, and it costs nothing to poke around in.
What happens with your answer
Your postcode picks your climate zone, which decides what goes in this month. Where you grow sets your space to ground level or balcony, which is what the planting advice, the sun model and the pot sizing all read from. What you need most decides which first steps you see.
If you do not have an account yet, your answers are kept in your browser and the last two follow you into your account when you make one. If you have one, your saved postcode fills in for you and we never change it from here. Start again clears your answers. It does not touch a garden you have already set up in My Garden.
Sorted? Then let’s put something in the ground.
Sorted? Your garden is one click away.
Want a short list of crops to begin with? Three quick questions, about a minute, no account needed for that either.
Your answers feed straight into the advice you see in My Garden, so head back there and carry on.